Pedophile ring claims unfounded

Nick McKenzie

AN INVESTIGATION by Australia's main crime-fighting agency has found no evidence of organised pedophilia in Northern Territory indigenous communities.

The finding by the Australian Crime Commission demolishes one of the central claims used by the Howard government to support its controversial NT intervention.

In the now-discredited claims that underlined his push for the 2007 intervention, then-indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough, along with some commentators, claimed there were "pedophile rings" in the Northern Territory.

But in an interview with The Sunday Age, crime commission chief John Lawler said his agency's 18-month multimillion-dollar investigation had determined there was "not organised pedophilia in indigenous communities".

The commission was directed by the Howard government in 2007 to use its special powers — given to the agency in 2003 to fight organised crime such as drug trafficking and money laundering — to investigate child abuse in the territory.

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Among the crime commission's powers is the ability to force people to answer questions in secret coercive hearings or risk being sent to prison.

"One of the early questions that was being asked (at the beginning of the intervention) was: 'Was there organised pedophilia targeting indigenous communities and children?' " Mr Lawler said.

"One of the things that the (crime commission) report has been able to find and report on is that that does not seem to be the case," he said, while stressing that his investigators had found serious criminal offences, including cases of child sexual abuse.

The commission also found poor information sharing and reporting on violence and child abuse and abuses of power by senior community figures. Questions about the appropriateness of sending an elite organised crime-fighting body, rather than local police and specialised agencies, to investigate sexual abuse and violence in indigenous communities have now shifted to the Rudd Government.

Despite reservations held by senior Labor figures, including the chairman of the commission's parliamentary committee, Steve Hutchins, and former home affairs minister Bob Debus, Mr Rudd extended the life of the commission taskforce this year.

The Sunday Age can also reveal that most crime commission board members, who include all state and territory police commissioners, also have serious reservations about whether the commission should have an NT indigenous intelligence taskforce.

"Most of the board were against it," said a senior police source.

Mr Rudd overturned a decision by Mr Debus to cut funding to the taskforce in March. An additional $5.5 million to extend the taskforce by a year was announced shortly after criticism from prominent indigenous figures, including academic Marcia Langton, who accused Mr Rudd of putting a "price tag" on Aboriginal children.

Labor senator Steve Hutchins said the finding of no organised pedophilia showed the taskforce funding should not have been extended, saying the decision came after political pressure.

"The mix of social and economic problems that create crime and disadvantage in the Northern Territory should be dealt with by appropriate bodies, not an agency that deals with serious organised crime," Senator Hutchins said.

"You don't see the Government sending the crime commission into Catholic churches where there has been organised pedophilia. Now we know there is no organised pedophilia in indigenous communities.

"Even if there were, the crime commission would be the wrong body to investigate."

The commission has struggled to get enough funding to battle crime bosses and the illegal drug trade, and will have lost a further 35 staff this year to meet budget demands.

In March, the Police Federation attacked the decision to renew funding for the taskforce, claiming it was "not producing anything that the NT police would not have the capacity to do if they were properly resourced".

The Northern Land Council, which represents Aboriginal groups in northern Australia, has also criticised the decision.

Last week, the Productivity Commission reported that substantiated child abuse cases in indigenous communities increased from 16 per 1000 children nine years ago to 35 per 1000 children in 2007-08.

This compares with an increase of abuse cases in non-indigenous children of five per 1000 to six per 1000 in the same period, suggesting that indigenous children are six times more likely to be abused.